In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith asserts that humans have an innate interest in the fortunes of other people and desire for sympathy with others. In Smith’s theory, sympathy is an imperfectly reflected combination of emotion and judgment when one observes someone (the agent) in a...

This paper presents and analyzes the results of a recent field experiment in which residential electricity customers in Washington State with price-responsive in-home devices could use those devices to change their electricity consumption autonomously. Doing so also required an important...

Smart metering can bring significant benefits to electricity markets by allowing customers to reduce demand or increase supply when generation capacity is temporarily scarce. To reap the full efficiency and environmental benefits of this technology, regulators must allow price volatility and...

Central-government politicians channel resources to sub-national entities for political gains. We show formally that the central politicians' allocation decision has two drivers: political alignment (between central and local politicians) and the level of local political accountability. However,...